Electric paper reinforcer / hole puncher (EPRHP)

ABSTRACT

We have designed a machine for office use called the Electric Paper Reinforcer/Hole Puncher (EPRHP) to protect papers stored in three ring binders. EPRHP is an electric powered device that can automatically apply a clear, ultra thin layer of plastic film on the edge of printed documents to reinforce them, and then punch 3 holes within the plastic film area on these documents. As a result, these 3 holes will be reinforced and prevent the documents from being torn by the rings of the binder. EPRHP can be further used to reinforce large sized printed documents, such as 36×24 drawings, by applying the plastic film on the edge of drawings. The EPRHP is a portable machine and can be placed on an office desk. EPRHP can turn a document printed on a piece of regular bond paper into a durable document, without deforming the paper appearance or creating any winkles on the paper, all while leaving the main body of the page free to be marked up or otherwise modified.

DESCRIPTION

1. Field of Invention

The invention relates to a paper reinforcing and paper hole punchingapparatus for documents and drawings, particularly designed for officeuse, to improve the efficiency of office workers and enhance thedurability of their documents. This invention particularly changes thepaper reinforcement process from a manual, time consuming and lowquality process to an automatic, efficient and high quality process.

2. Background of the Invention

As software and printing technologies advance, technical and marketingfirms are capable of producing their own professional grade reports andpresentations efficiently. Preparing and organizing these paperdocuments in a 3-ring binder is one of the most common methods to storeand present the reports and presentations in the office. But the commonproblem associated with using 3-ring bidders concerns the holes of somepapers, where often the most important and most frequently revieweddocuments got torn. Examples include a sign off sheet, a protocol paperand record paper that requires many people's review and their initialsand signatures. A torn paper will affect the report and presentationappearance and might even get lost from the binder. In addition, thetorn paper might negatively impact the image of the person ororganization that prepares the binder.

To solve this problem, there are several paper reinforcement productsavailable on the market which are designed to reinforce printeddocuments stored in 3-ring bidders. Examples include paper holereinforcements, made by manufacturers such as 3M, Avery and Universal.These products allow the user to manually apply the self adhesivereinforcement (white or clear) over the paper holes. Another similarproduct is the Clear Mylar Reinforcing Strips, made by Keysan. Thisproduct is made for repairing a piece of torn paper. It allows the userto manually apply a paper strip on the torn paper edge, and thenre-punch 3 holes on the strip. There are several problems associatedwith these products: 1. they are time consuming. With the paper holereinforcement, for instance, people usually do not have the patience toline up and apply the paper hole reinforcement on the three holes ofeach piece of paper. 2. Deforming and wrinkling the paper willsignificantly impact the paper's appearance. How the paper looks is veryimportant in the reports and presentations, especially when thesereports and presentations will be reviewed by clients and management.

The other paper product made to solve this problem is made by Rediform.These 3-hole blank papers from Rediform come with ultra thin plasticfilm reinforcement already put on the area along the edge of the paper.These papers have a high quality appearance with the reinforcement on,(which is also provided by this invention). These papers costapproximately $11/100 sheet, compared to regular bond paper's price:$10/500 sheets. In addition to the high cost, the other problem withthis product is that the users have to put them in the printer trayfirst before the printing, which is not practical or convenient when ashared network printer is used. Most companies use shared networkprinters, and regular bond paper is used by these network printers. Mostof documents printed from the printer are for users to review only, andwill not be stored in the three ring binders. Only some printeddocuments will be put into the three ring binders by the users. Loadingthe printers with these expensive, reinforced 3-hole papers is costlyand impractical. In some situations, the documents are only available ashard copies, which means the user has to load the Rediform papers in thecopy machine in order to make copies with reinforcement, which causeseven more inconvenience and is highly inefficient.

The other need of this invention is that, in most engineering firms,construction drawings are often plotted on 11×17 sized papers, and puttogether into 11×17 sized 3-ring binders. During construction, thesebinders are frequently reviewed by the engineers in the offices andconstruction site. These papers are much more easily torn because theengineers frequently check the drawings and make notes on them. These11×17 drawings are always badly torn even before the construction isbegun. However, they are very important because a lot of valuableinformation is hand-written on them, and they are considered permanentrecords. Repairing these drawings (with usually over 75 pages ofdrawings per binder) by using the hole reinforcement or paperreinforcement strips could take up hours of an engineer's valuable time.After construction, the as-built drawings will be put in these 11×17binders and delivered to the maintenance personnel. These binders willbe used as a maintenance manual, which could be used by the maintenancetechnicians in the field for the next twenty or even thirty years. Thesedrawings are always badly torn after a few field operations and requiremajor paper repair. Using EPRHP to reinforce the drawing set prior touse will eliminate such problems, or using EPRHP will make the paperrepair much easier.

Another need of this invention is that, some documents and drawings arenot printed on 8 ½×11 or 11×17 paper, such as a poster and a standardsize construction drawing. For instance, the construction drawings areusually plotted on 36×24 sized papers. Since these drawings are beingreviewed and marked up so frequently, the edges of the papers are alwaysbadly torn. These drawings, with stamps and signatures from theprofessional engineers, must be kept as a record document and allowed tobe copied. This usually requires tremendous paper repair work on thesetorn drawings after construction. The engineers usually have to apply aclear tape, or the Clear Mylar Reinforcement Strips on the edge of thedrawings to reinforce the paper in order to prevent the torn paper edgefrom jamming the copy machine. There are often more than 100 drawingsper construction project. Most of the time, as mentioned above, manuallyapplying reinforcement strips or clear tape on the paper's edge caneasily create winkles on the papers. In general, manually apply thepaper reinforcement on a 36×24 drawing set with more than 100 drawingscould take up a day or more of work, depending on how badly the drawingsare torn. This invention could quickly and efficiently perform thistask.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, the first objective of this invention is to improve theefficiency of the paper reinforcement process. The inventors havedesigned an apparatus to automatically apply an ultra thin reinforcementfilm on printed 8 ½×11 and 11×17 documents without deforming or creatingany wrinkles on the paper, and then punch 3-holes within thereinforcement area to prepare these documents for a 3-ring binder.

The second objective of this invention is to allow the office worker toapply the reinforcements and punch holes on multiple pages in a single,automated process, in order to increase the paper reinforcementefficiency. The EPRHP is designed to automatically take one page at atime from a document stack, apply the reinforcement strip on this page,and then punch holes on this page and the reinforcement strip. Theprocess of the paper being transferred into the EPRHP is similar to thatwhich a printer or a scanner uses.

The last objective of this invention is to allow the office workers,using the EPRHP, to automatically apply the paper reinforcement stripalong the edge of large sized paper, such as a 36×24 sized drawing,instead of by hand.

To achieve the above objectives, there is provided a paper reinforcementand hole punching apparatus for the office workers. When the EPRHP isused to reinforce a large size drawing, the hole punch function isdeactivated and only the film application function is used to apply thefilm on the paper's edge.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is the isometric South-East view of the EPRHP. In this figure,the relative dimensions of each part of the apparatus are not respected.It shows the major components in the apparatus.

FIG. 2 is the isometric North-West view of the apparatus. It shows theapparatus from the opposite angle.

FIG. 3 is the isometric South-East view of the paper reinforcer, onlythe most important component of this apparatus. It provides anindependent view of the paper reinforcer.

FIG. 4 is the isometric North-West view of the paper reinforcer. Itshows the paper reinforcer from the opposite angle.

FIG. 5 shows the process of producing a reinforced 3-hole paper documentwith the EPRHP.

FIG. 6 shows the process of reinforcing a large sized drawing with theEPRHP.

FIG. 7 shows the plastic film-wax paper roll, indicating how the plasticfilm strip and wax paper are bonded together.

FIG. 8 shows current paper reinforcement products on the market and howthey are used.

DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS OF THE INVENTION

Refer to FIG. 1. In one embodiment of the invention, the EPRHP comprisesthe following major components: a plastic film application station (2A,2B); a 3-hole puncher (10A, 10B); a multiple paper in-feed tray (3); aplastic film-wax paper roll (1); a wax paper rolling station (7); and apaper transfer mechanism (8).

The plastic film-wax paper roll (1) is made particularly for the EPRHP,and is shown in FIG. 3 and FIG. 7. The plastic strip is 11″×½″ thatbonds to the wax paper. The strip's smooth, non adhesive side is bondedto the wax paper's sticky side, as shown in FIG. 7, since the plasticstrip surface is smooth, the plastic strip can be easily pealed off fromthe wax paper. The side of the film strip facing up is self-adhesive,though not adhesive to the reverse side of the wax paper, so the rollcan be easily unrolled. Each film strip is ½ inch wide and ¼ inch apartfrom the next strip on the roll.

When the plastic strip is pressed on the paper, the bonding between thepaper and the adhesive strip is much stronger than the bonding betweenthe plastic strip and wax paper, so the plastic strip is very easilypealed off from the wax paper. The plastic film-wax paper roll (1) is 3inches in diameter, and can provide 300 plastic strips.

The typical 3-hole puncher punches a hole with ¼″ diameter and thecenter of the hole is about ⅜″ from the edge of paper. EPRHP applies a½″ wide plastic film (strip) on the paper, ⅛″ from the paper edge, sothese 3 holes will be located within the plastic film and the plasticfilm surrounds these 3-holes and protects the paper hole from being tornby the 3 rings in the binder.

The common application for the EPRHP is to apply the plastic film on an8½×11 sized printed document. The EPRHP can also be used on a paper thatalready has 3 punched holes on it and reinforce it. In this case, onlythe plastic film gets punched in the EPRHP.

The process of reinforcing and punching papers is shown FIG. 1 and FIG.2. When users have a stack of printed documents with page width equal to11-inches, and the user would like to reinforce and punch them beforeputting them into a 3-ring binder, the user can place this stack ofdocuments into the in-feed paper tray (3), the printed side down. Theuser presses a button to start the process, the EPRHP will then performthe following tasks:

The EPRHP takes one page at a time, starting from the bottom of thepaper stack. The paper transfer mechanism (8) transfers the paper underthe plastic film application station (2A, 2B). It works in a similar wayto the paper transfer mechanism in printers and scanners commonly usedin offices.

The wax paper rolling station (7) turns and aligns the film edge withthe paper edge.

The base plate of the film application station (2B) moves up, andpresses the paper and plastic film together against the roller of thefilm application station (2A). The edge of the film adheres to thepaper, since the film's contact side with paper is adhesive.

As shown in FIG. 1, the base plate of the film application station (2B)then moves to the left, its movement turns the roller of the filmapplication station (2A) clockwise. As a result, the film is pealed offfrom the wax paper and applied firmly on the paper by the roller of thefilm application station (2A). At the same time, the wax paper rollingstation (7) turns and linearly moves the wax paper toward the leftexactly 0.75″ (since the film is ½″ wide and ¼″ apart).

The base plate of the film application station (2B) moves down and tothe right, back to the start position.

The paper transfer mechanism (8) transfers the paper under the 3-holepuncher (10A), which punches 3 holes on the paper and the appliedplastic film.

Remove the paper.

The EPRHP takes another piece of paper and repeats the tasks 1-6.

When the EPRHP is used to apply the paper reinforcement on an irregularsized paper, for instance a 36×24 drawing, the user will need to detachthe paper in-feed tray (3) from the EPRHP. As a result, the papertransfer mechanism (8) is disabled, and the 3-hole puncher (10A) isdisabled also. The user then holds the paper and slides it under theroller of the film application station (2A), and the EPRHP proceeds withthe tasks 3-5. Since the EPRHP can only apply an 11″ long piece of film,the user will need to move the paper to the left (or right) to allow theEPRHP to apply the film on the other part of paper edge which is not yetcovered with the film. For instance, 3 applications will be needed tocover a 24″ paper edge, and the applied film will overlap, as shown inFIG. 5. As described in Background of the Invention, manually applyingthe paper reinforcement on a set of 100 36×24 drawings would take days,while using EPRHP can accomplish the same task in a couple of hours andwith a much higher quality.

1. A paper reinforcer and hole puncher apparatus to reinforce and punchprinted documents to prepare the document papers to be put in a 3-ringbinder. The electric powered apparatus enhances the paper's durabilitywithout deforming the document papers. The said apparatus is made in acompact size so the said apparatus can be used on the top of an officedesk.
 2. The said apparatus of claim 1 applies a clear, ultra thin filmon the edge of the printed document, and then punches 3 holes on thesaid film and paper.
 3. The apparatus of claim 1 comprises a plasticfilm application station; a 3-hole punching station; a plastic film-waxpaper roll; a multiple paper in-feed tray; a wax paper rolling station;a paper transfer mechanism.
 4. The apparatus of claim 1 canautomatically process a stack of printed documents with page width equalto 11 inches, with the following tasks:
 1. transfer the printed documentto a position under the said plastic film application station in thesaid apparatus;
 2. apply the reinforcement film on the paper;
 3. punch 3holes on the paper and the reinforcement film;
 4. produce the saidprinted documents with reinforcement and punched holes, which fit in aregular 3-ring binder.
 5. The apparatus of claim 1 can further be usedto reinforce a printed document with a page width more than 11 inches,by applying a succession of 11 inch long reinforcement strips on thedocument paper edge until the paper edge is covered, while the functionof hole punching and paper transfer mechanism is deactivated.
 6. Thesaid plastic film application station of claim 1 comprises a roller andan electrical powered base plate, which moves up and presses thedocument paper and the said plastic film against the said roller, andthe said base plate moves linearly to apply the said plastic film on theedge of the printed document.
 7. The said 3-hole puncher of claim 1 isan electric powered 3-hole puncher that moves up and down to punch 3holes on the said document paper and film after the film is applied onthe edge of the said paper, and allows the paper to fit in a regular3-ring binder.
 8. The said plastic film-wax paper roll of claim 1 is aroll of wax paper bonded with a series of 11 inch long, ½ inch wideplastic film strips, spaced ¼″ apart. The said clear ultra thin plasticfilm with sticky side facing up is easily pealed off from the said waxpaper. The sticky side of the said plastic film is not adhesive to thereverse side of the said wax paper, which allows the said plasticfilm-wax paper roll to be easily unrolled.
 9. The said wax paper ofclaim 7 is a piece of wax paper with one side's surface smooth andadhesive, and the other side smooth and non adhesive. The adhesive sideis bonded to the said plastic film strip of claim
 7. 10. The saidplastic film strip of claim 7 is a clear, ultra thin plastic film withone side adhesive and the other side non-adhesive. The plastic film'snon adhesive side bonded to the adhesive side of the said wax paper ofclaim
 7. The adhesive side of the said plastic film is not adhesive tothe reverse side of the said wax paper in claim
 7. 11. The said multiplepaper in-feed tray of claim 1 is a paper tray that feeds a stack ofprinted documents in the said apparatus of claim 1, sequentially fromthe bottom to the top. This allows the said apparatus to reinforce andpunch one paper at a time until the stack of papers in the tray is allreinforced and punched.
 12. The said wax paper rolling station of claim1 is an electric powered roller that rolls the wax paper correspondinglywith the motion of the said plastic film application station of claim 1.This allows the said apparatus to apply the said plastic film preciselyon the edge of the document paper.
 13. The paper transfer mechanism ofclaim 1 is an electric powered paper transfer system to transfer thedocument paper from the multiple paper tray to the said apparatus forreinforcement application and hole punching. It then transfers thepapers out of the said apparatus after the papers are reinforced andpunched. be further used to reinforce large sized printed documents,such as 36×24 drawings, by applying the plastic film on the edge ofdrawings. The EPRHP is a portable machine and can be placed on an officedesk. EPRHP can turn a document printed on a piece of regular bond paperinto a durable document, without deforming the paper appearance orcreating any winkles on the paper, all while leaving the main body ofthe page free to be marked up or otherwise modified.